The Taken
by whocares1313
Summary: The flock used to be just your average kids. That is, until the school got them. Now they are being tortured and mentally challenged, all while trying to figure out a way to escape. Will they ever get out?
1. Chapter 1

**I hope you like this…**

**Disclaimer- Me no own.**

Summary- Max is your average ever-popular teenager in some random high school student body. One day she gets kidnapped by the school, and ends up in its facilities, they want to make her a bird-girl. They do the procedure, and put her in a room where they have the other human-avian experiments. But lets start from the beginning.

Max POV

Cheerleading practice is hard, hard, hard. We had been working on our extreme tumbling for three hours to prepare for our match against The Knights next Saturday night. We were also watching the football team practice, of course… WITH NO SHIRTS ON!

It was especially awesome because my boyfriend Dylan was the hottest guy on the team and everyone knew he was mine, and they were jealous of it.

I was walking home, I have no idea why, I'm rich for crying out loud, but anyway, I was walking home. I got to my house _way _late because cheerleading practice went over a freaking hour and a half!

Mom walked up and greeted me like nothing was wrong. "Hey sweetie, how was school?"

"Fine," I said, shrugging.

"You're a little late, aren't you?"

_Oh. _"Uh, yeah, practice went way over, we were practicing tumbling."

"Oooohhhh," she said knowingly. She had been a cheerleader, too.

Ella, my little sister, ran downstairs. "Hey Max, how was practice."

I grunted.

"Tumbling," Mom explained.

Ella rushed into a conversation. "Max, how was practice other then the tumbling, I'm sorry I couldn't come, you told coach that right? I swear she's just looking for a reason to kick me off the team."

"Ella, calm yourself, it's only been one practice you've missed so far, and yes, you missed the football team shirtless."

She groaned and led me to the kitchen where Tanya, the head chef, had a three course dinner ready for me. And it was totally calorie and carb conscious. I am so proud of Tanya's progress.

"Where's dad?" I asked, dad was never into family time.

"He's in his study," mom explained, "please don't bug him, he's preparing for a big science experiment in a few days and still has to find the last ingredient."

_I thought ingredients were only used in cooking._

I went upstairs to my room, after finishing my meal, and was done with my homework by 11:30. Wow, a new record.

I fell asleep at my desk, on Skype with my BFF JJ. We were the captain and co-captain of the cheerleading squad. We really don't need captains and co-captains though, because coach is in charge and we get no say in anything, they're just titles really.

*********the next morning***********

I woke up late, wondering why my alarm wasn't going off. "Damn," I muttered to myself.

I got ready for school fast and grabbed something out of the fridge, hoping not to miss my carpool.

I ran outside, waving my arms dramatically, just as it was about to leave. That was close.

I sat down in my normal window seat next to Lissa, the wicked bitch of the west. Alas, I had to pretend to be her friend because she was also on the cheerleading squad, and the coach told us some kind of BS that we all had to be 'cheerleading sisters'.

We picked up JJ, our last person in the carpool, and went to school, blasting music the whole way. It started with Billionaire by Travie McCoy and Bruno Mars. Then we listened to Fireflies by Owl City, singing along the whole time. The last song we heard was Goodbye by I-don't-know-who **(seriously, I don't, can someone tell me?)**.

We got to school and I was greeted by Dylan. He slung his arm over my shoulder. "Hey babe," he said, all cool-like.

"Wazzup?" I asked, and the next thing I knew we were making out by the lockers. _He is such a good kisser._

Dylan suddenly turned around and I saw a teacher, with her arms folded across her chest. "No PDA please, Mister Gunter-Hagen and Miss Martinez." She walked away.

I couldn't help a giggle escape my lips. "Gunter-Hagen," I whispered.

Dylan playfully slapped me on the shoulder. "Shut up," he said in a whiney voice. I just laughed harder.

We separated and I went to first period, my stomach feeling kind of wonky.

In the middle of a class lecture, guess what happened, I puked.

The teacher sent me to the nurses office and I called Jeb to pick me up because mom was at the animal hospital.

He said he'd come and he finally pulled up after, like twenty minutes.

I got in the car and sat down in the passengers seat. We were driving down an empty road and I was trying to start a conversation.

"So dad, what's up with work?"

He shrugged.

I tried a different approach. "So, mom told me you needed that last ingredient for your experiment, have you found it yet?"

His face broke out in a gigantic grin and he snapped. A wet rag was thrown over my face and my world went blurry.

"Yes Maximum, I have found the last ingredient," he said giddily, and my world went black.

**Pointers? Like it? Hate it? Leave a review! Please!**


	2. Chapter 2

**This is the chapter where the rest of the soon to be 'flock' get TAKEN!**

**Disclaimer- I. Am. James. Patterson. (wait a second? I think I forgot a word…)**

Fang POV

I rolled my eyes at the unconscious body that thought he could take me while the crowd cheered. I am the only undefeated mixed-martial-arts fighter from my school (seriously, 'concerned parents' haven't shut it down yet in my school district), Southern High.

"Fang! Fang! FANG!" the people shouted from the stands. I hate this attention, the noise, but it's a good way to let out all of my anger without getting in trouble with the school administrators.

My helper guy, Adam, threw me a towel and a water bottle. I caught them, threw the towel over my shoulder and took a big gulp of water.

I walked into the bathroom, ready to get out of here, and crawled out of one of the windows.

I felt my ankle twist as I jumped down (the windows were set around 10 feet off the ground) and ignored the pain, just like I did in my fights.

A big modely-looking guy that girls would probably swoon over stepped out of the area behind the school. I felt my paranoia soar.

"Hello, Fang," he said with a look of superiority.

I got pissed after that. "Hello, person who's name I don't know, why are _you _stalking me?"

He smiled like a predator. "You're perfect, Dr. Batchelder needs specimen like you."

Pedophile! "I know I am a special man, but not a specimen." And with that, I threw a snap kick at him, which had him wheezing, and, going with the momentum from the snap kick, I round-housed him in the ear, causing it to bleed.

He was over it fast, though, and threw a hook punch to my jaw, hard enough to break it if I hadn't ducked in time. He went with the momentum of his punch, just like me with the kick, and round-housed me in the nose. I heard it break.

Fortunately, I do bare-hand fighting, and had a broken nose many times, so I just popped it back in, but the blood tasted pretty bad.

I didn't even see it coming, he threw a ridge-hand at my right temple, and landed it perfectly, with tremendous impact.

And I was out cold on the sidewalk.

Iggy POV

A new transfer student was in all of my classes. So far she hated Fairway High as much as me (and everyone else).

She was also signed up for my after school cooking class. This was the only thing I did like.

Me and my friends all lived in the same neighborhood, different subdivisions, but the new kid lived in mine. We talked the whole way home (the school didn't have a late bus and were chill about walking home after, like, 5:00) and split up to go to our separate subdivisions. The new girl (Natalie) lived in a house next to mine, and invited me over to 'watch a movie or something'.

We walked in. "So," I said, I wrinkled my nose, "what's that smell?"

She was digging around in her pantry. "I don't know, new home smell?"

I started to get a little faint and fell to the ground, sprawled out.

She stepped over me and waved her hand as if saying 'goodbye'. "Night, night, Iggy."

Gazzy POV

I held Angel's hand as we skipped to our moms car.

I saw it parked out in the middle of the lot, a silver Corolla '08. The trunk popped open, just like it usually did when we left Indigo Elementary School. Angel threw in her Disney Princess backpack at the same time I threw in my Power Rangers **(love that show!) **one.

She giggled and opened the door to 'her side' of the car behind the drivers seat. I preferred the backseat behind the passengers side.

I jumped up on the bumper and noticed mom's license plates were missing. I shrugged it off and grabbed the top ridge of the trunk, jumping down and pulling it with me to close it.

I got in my seat and saw someone sitting up front other than mom, who wouldn't turn around. She always turns around.

I tapped her on the shoulder and she turned around really fast, grabbing my wrist.

_This isn't my mom._

Angel started screaming her six-year-old head off when she saw it wasn't our mom, which is when mom 2 pulled me up front (I was only 45 lbs… what? I'm 8) and started tying me up with rope, while mysterious person got Angel.

Angel was still screaming, and I felt tears of frustration leak out, I needed to help her. Fake mom had me in an iron grip and her partner kicked Angel in the head, and she fell asleep.

Fake mom threw me back there then and started the car, accelerating **(just pretend 8 year olds know that word) **it really fast, and sped off.

Nudge POV **(I'm doing her last because this one's at night, not right after school, just pretend that Nudge is 14, like the rest of the older kids)**

I was at my first high school party of my first year in high school. Eep! It was being hosted by this guy I talk to in my Spanish Class who's parents who were out of time.

I got some of the punch and it tasted weird, but in a good way. I got like, 5 glasses of it and danced a lot. I noticed that most of the people dancing were punch drinkers. _I wonder why?_

It was awesome punch, and I was starting to get dizzy, probably from dehydration. Since that was the case, I got another cup of punch, and then felt the urge to puke.

I ran to the bathroom, thankfully it was open, and there was so much, I think I puked out more than my guts.

I blacked out over the toilet after I heard someone walk in.

**Sorry about the varying lengths of kidnappings. Fangs I wrote earlier when I wasn't tired, so that's why that's so long. Iggy's was the first I wrote after my whole 'tiredness' started. Gazzy's is long because its his and Angel's at the same time. Nudge's is so short because I just want to go to bed.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Nothing much to say… Fang is going to be OOC in this chappie.**

**Disclaimer- I do not own Maximum Ride (haha I feel so official)**

Fang POV

I woke up strapped to a bed. A FREAKING BED!

There were Velcro straps holding onto my wrists and ankles and no amount of tugging could loosen them.

"Hey newbie," a voice said from somewhere in the room. This white, disgusting room.

"Who are you?" I asked suspiciously.

"I am Max, who are you?"

"Uh, Fang."

"Yes, you should be afraid, you see, while you've been out like a light the past four days, me and the others have been in testing, what you will be in soon." Her voice sounded like a predator about to pounce.

_4 days!_

"Where are the other?"

The girl yawned. "In testing."

"Why aren't you in testing?"

"I just got back, I am in the same position as you. Just remember that. When those things are happening to you in that room, remember the rest of us, remember we already went through it."

I still couldn't see her, I could only see the (disgusting) white ceiling.

Footsteps came down what I'm guessing was a hallway.

"Get down," a stern voice said, and I heard two plops. I'm guessing two people just got back from 'testing'.

Velcro snapped and the person walked over to my bed.

I could see her now, red hair, pale skin, freckles, wearing what looked like a permanent scowl.

She handcuffed me and pushed me toward the door. I looked around the room and saw the only person who could be Max, a skinny girl with sandy hair also strapped to a bed; and two exhausted looking kids who might have been siblings. They were strapped to beds too.

The red head walked me down the hallway and I looked into a room with a window as we passed. A tall strawberry blonde dude was benching weights that looked too heavy for the muscle-iest person in the world to lift. An African girl was running a treadmill at what looked like 13 mph at the least. They both had bags under their eyes.

"I am Brigid, but you will call me Dr. Dwyer," Brigid - ahem - Dr. Dwyer said.

She took me into yet another white room and I almost puked. Lab supplies, doctor stuff. I hate the doctor. Just then, I noticed that Dr. Dwyer was wearing a white lab coat.

She laughed like your classic villan and slapped a wet rag over my face.

"Don't worry, this will only hurt… a lot," she said.

_Wow. Cliché much? _was the last thing I thought before I passed out.

_one operation later_

I woke up, _again, _in that white room.

Max started talking to me again. "You missed recreational time."

"Okay?" I said, but it came out a question.

"We all had recreational time," said a tired voice. It cracked as if it had been crying. The voice must have been the little girl I saw with what must have been her older brother.

"Shh Angel, shh," said another female voice.

"We don't want them coming back again," said a male voice.

"How many people are in here?" I asked.

"None really," said Max.

"What do you mean?"

"We are all, even you, now anyway, human-avian hybrids."

"What!"

"We're bird kids, even you," said a boys voice.

"So who's here?" I asked wearily.

"Nudge!" called the other women's voice that wasn't Max's.

"Iggy," said the man's voice.

"Gazzy," said the boys voice.

"Angel," said the girls voice that had been crying.

"That's Fang," said Max.

"Hi Fang," they all chimed.

I relaxed all of my muscles and closed my eyes, hoping this was some scary dream.

About twenty minutes later, I'm just guessing here, I was still in the white room, surrounded by the even breathing of people sleeping. Except for one person who was whisper-yelling at something. I recognized Max's voice. She just never took a break.

"What did you mean by human-avian hybrids?" I asked, not really wanting the answer.

"We all are now part bird. We have wings, our endurance has increased, and we have greater strength than any human being."

"That's a lot after just one operation."

_Wings?_

"These people are the mad scientist type, they send their erasers to collect, and make crazy experiments. I was the only one here not collected by an eraser."

"Then who were you taken by?" I asked.

"My father," she said coolly, and I knew the conversation was over.

I heard some rustling from her direction of the room and around ten minutes later she was also sleeping.

I shifted my body as much as I could while being strapped down, trying to get comfortable.

I was still awake for what seemed like forever until I just drifted off into the nothingness that is sleep.

Or maybe death.

I _really _wished it was death.


	4. Chapter 4

**Off hiatus! Finally! But updates will probably be slow on all of my stories since I start school tomorrow…**

**Disclaimer- I own my own copy of Schools Out Forever, does that count as owning Maximum Ride?**

Max POV

Pretty boy Fangles was lucky; he got to sleep while we underwent testing. But, I had heard that the way he was taken was the worst (in the physical way anyway, do any of you think that getting kidnapped by your DAD would NOT give you psychological problems and nightmares?).

Anyway, I had just woken up from one of said nightmares, and was breathing heavily. Jeb had been chasing me around the house with a knife, and when I ran into my room, mom and Ella were laying on my bed, bloody and dead. Of course, in real life, Jeb had just hurt me, not mom or Ella.

One good thing about waking up in the middle of the night was that I could hear Angel talk in her sleep. She was so adorable, and didn't deserve this, none of us did.

I sighed and rolled over on the cot (we weren't strapped down anymore), trying to go back to sleep. I suddenly had a hot flush, and felt that the cot, with its sheets filled with my nightmare sweat, were too hot. I got off the cot and laid down on the sterile white tiled floor. Unfortunately, the tile creaked under my weight, and Fangums shot up.

"Who's there?" he whisper-yelled and Iggy groaned, rolling over and putting the pillow over his ears.

"Idiot, it's just me," I hissed.

He rolled his eyes and laid back down on his bed, and I settled on the floor. There was another creak of the floor, and Fang lazily sat up.

"I'm never going to get to sleep if you keep moving," he said with narrow eyes.

"It's your fault if you stay up late and fall asleep during testing, not mine, and they may punish you for it, plus, I didn't make the floor-" I was cut off when Fang shushed me.

There were whispers outside the door, which I could make out because of my new super-hearing.

"Are they ready?" said a voice I recognized as Doc Dwyer's.

"Does it matter? It's survival of the fittest, we _want _to weed out the weaklings, so we have the best of the best," said a voice that sounded like the Terminator.

"Whatever, it's your project, bring in the erasers."

The model guys walked in the room. Fang and I exchanged glances. My eyes were scared; his were glazed over, almost looking like he was bored.

Out of nowhere, Nudge was lifted out of her bed, and she screamed as she was thrown into a dog crate. Next they picked up Fang, and he managed to get a good punch in on one. They took him out of the room, probably for punishment.

Everyone was awake and wide-eyed by now. They just sat there and stared as the erasers picked them up, one by one, and were dropped into canine campers. I glared at an eraser as him and another lifted me up into one of the crates. I knew not to fight back, seeing as what happened to Fang. They cackled as we were put on the cart, probably finding where they were taking us hilarious. All I could do was stick my fingers through the grate, press my nose up to the cold metal, and scowl.

Fang POV

I punched the eraser in the face (pwnage) as he tried to put me in the dog crate. That was not happening.

He and another wolf guy carried me out of the room. They threw me down on the floor in a (surprise, surprise) white room.

Wolf boys walked out, and Dr. Dwyer walked in, wearing a frown. "Why must you resist Fang? Things would be so much easier if you just went along with it."

"I resist because you're a bunch of whack jobs," I replied snarkily.

"Oh Fang, I am so sorry we have to do this," she said, not sounding sorry at all. If anything, she sounded happy.

She walked out and I was left on the cold floor alone for a few minutes before about five erasers came in. I sighed; this was going to be fun.

They beat me up and snapped my wrist, laughing about how it would be hard for me to fight them off in training tomorrow because of it. I didn't say a word, didn't scream in pain, and didn't let a single silent tear fall as they mangled me. I wouldn't give them the satisfaction of seeing that they hurt me.

They left me there, bleeding all over the whiteness of the room, until a doctor came in. He glared at me like I shouldn't be breathing his air, and put me in the dog crate himself. I was so weak from blood loss that I couldn't fight, couldn't even growl in anger. I just curled up into a ball in the dog crate and frowned.

I was loaded onto a cart and carried into a dirty room filled with other kids in dog crates. The doctor threw my crate down in between the Gasman's and Iggy's. I looked across the hallway and saw Max and Nudge comforting a crying Angel. I wondered why she was crying until I realized the experiment next to her wasn't breathing.

It looked like a cross between a boy and an alligator. The boy could only have been two. He had his whole life ahead of him, and the school had ruined him, killed him. He was only an experiment to them.

Then I realized, that boy could be us. We could die at any time. What made our experiment special in any way? What was keeping our DNA from breaking down, killing us slowly from the inside out? I curled into a tighter ball and retreated inside of myself, the only place left to retreat to.


	5. Chapter 5

**Who else had their power knocked out by Irene for more than 24 hours?**

**Disclaimer- I doubt James Patterson is currently obsessed with 13 the musical (awesome musical by the way, unfortunately they don't even have the original on iTunes, so I have to watch bootleg versions *sadness*) update: and fighter by Christina Aguilera **

**In fact, that song relates to this story a lot!**

Fang POV

We were all waken the next morning by the erasers kicking our cages (mine and Max's a little harder than the rest), telling us to: "Get our lazy (meaner word for butts) up for testing."

Our crates were un-padlocked and we all had our hands grabbed by erasers and held behind our backs. We were marched in our permanent pairs (one girl one guy) to different rooms. Angel and Gazzy were thrown into the 'exercise room'. Iggy and Nudge were put in the testing room, and I shuddered. Max and I would be there tomorrow.

We were pulled into the fighting room. There were about ten erasers waiting there. The point of the fighting room was to see how many erasers we could fight before they finally beat us. They said the point of that was to see how much our fighting skills were progressing, but I think it's because they need to see how many more guards they need outside our crates each.

The scientist behind the Plexiglass window was taking notes as we fought the erasers. I immediately took one out with a right hook to the temple (my signature move back in fight club). Max saw what I did and mimicked it, winking at me. She was distracted and got punched in the nose. It started spouting blood and she glared at the eraser who did it, before she pounced him with a flurry of punches and kicks. He was out in seconds.

Max had a bloodlust in her eyes that I'd never seen on anyone but myself before. Within three seconds two more erasers were down on the matt, bleeding all over. Max spat on them.

I got punched in the back and was reminded we were in a battle here. I sucked in air as I turned around and hooked the erasers jaw, breaking it. He round housed me and while I was doubled over grabbed my too-long hair and slammed my eye down on his knee. Suddenly I heard a spluttering and he fell down on me.

Max was standing behind where he was and had her hands in a spear hand formation, smirking. I could tell she hit him right in the place where the neck meets the head. Like she could sense it, she turned around, delivering a spinning back fist to eraser who was about to deliver a side kick to her. She got him right in the belly, and snap kicked him in the ribs. I heard one break as he went down.

I wriggled out from beneath the passed out eraser and sent a leopard's paw straight into the solar plexus of the first eraser I saw. He started gasping for breath and I kneed him in the groin. He fell to the ground holding his junk, and I stomped my sneakered foot down on his face, crushing his nose just like Max's.

Five more erasers came into the room and I let out a quick sigh before getting back into the groove. I side kicked one eraser in the belly and sent a back kick into the eraser behind me. I turned with a ridge hand into the eraser next to me's temple. He fell and I punched the eraser in front of me again, and drop kicked him. He was down.

I turned to the eraser who was previously behind me, hitting him in the collar bone with a hammer fist. As he tried to recover, I got in an uppercut to his chin. I was knocked out.

Max had one eraser in front her, and two were passed out on either side of her. She looked tired and about out cold herself. I snuck up behind the eraser, and could smell the cockiness on him. I put him in a choke hold and held it, making it tighter every second.

Max punched him in the stomach and he tried to splutter, but couldn't because of the choke I had on him. He fell.

Brigid walked in and Max screamed in frustration. She grabbed Brigid's long hair and slammed her head against the wall. She dropped like deadweight, blood trickling down her head from her ear.

I looked at Max like she was crazy. "That may be the stupidest thing you have ever done."

"Second stupidest," Max said with a scowl, and ran out into the hallway through the open door.

Max POV

"Second stupidest," I said, my voice steely, and ran into the hallway.

_My first stupidest was trusting dad-Jeb._

Fang followed me down the hallway, pumping his legs so he could catch up with me. In a few seconds he was running beside me. I heard an alarm going off and Fang and I both ran harder. We were going to get out of here, with all of the flock. We passed the testing room and I stopped to open the door to let Iggy and Nudge out.

Nudge came out and screamed, "Iggy!"

I looked in the room and saw Iggy's eyes bleeding. He began to clutch them and scream in pain. I shuddered looking at him and forgot we were trying to escape.

I heard whistling, that dreaded whistling. Erasers were on either side of the hallway, hundreds of them. I could feel the fear flash through my eyes before I suppressed it, trying to stay strong for Nudge.

The whistle went off another time and all of the erasers came rushing at us. I head butted one and ignored the pounding in my head as I threw it to the ground to be pounded by the other erasers boots.

I got lost in the sea of claws and fur until I felt one of the claws scratch down my face. The pain was like nothing I had experienced before, not even my broken nose that was still bleeding felt that bad.

I heard another scream from Nudge and saw her clutching her arm in pain. Fang seemed to be fairing the best out of all of us.

I felt a pinch in my leg and turned to see a shot. "Shit," I mumbled, and collapsed into the darkness.

**Does anyone know where I could buy a copy or something of the original play "13" when it was on Broadway? I really, really, really want to see the version with Ariana Grande and Liz Gilles in it!**


	6. Chapter 6

**I started high school, so all of my stories are going to be updated slower sorry! Yeah, the reason this is so late is my Biomedical teacher decided it would be a great idea to assign us three essays to finish in one and a half weeks. I have geometry homework every day, and reading will be pretty common too. I should be doing my homework now, but I'm doing it during lunch tomorrow. And I was going to eat in the band room because people practice their guitars and its awesome in there… **

**Disclaimer- my first name is not James, my last name is not Patterson**

Max POV

I woke up in my crate, and saw everyone but Iggy there. Nudge and Gazzy were whispering. "What's going on? Where's Iggy?" I asked.

"When you guys tried to escape, we just heard the alarm, they made us run faster to distract us," Gazzy started.

"And Iggy is in another testing room. When you opened the door they were doing an experiment to give him better night vision. The sudden flood of light in the room stunned the doctor, and he cut into Iggy's eyes with the laser, apparently he may be blind forever," Nudge finished.

I swore. This was all my fault. I had tried to escape; I had opened the door and let the light in. Right at that moment, I would have given anything for our situations to be switched.

I drifted off in the darkness and squinted when the door opened. A dog crate was being carried in and I could barely make out Iggy's form in it before it was thrown down on top of some other kid's crate, who jumped at the sudden force. The erasers chuckled and left.

Fang POV

I scowled as I thought of how I let Max down in the escape. When we had been practically swimming in our own blood, I was the last one standing. I saw Nudge go down with a bad shot to the head. I had heard Max shriek a little and go down, I still didn't know what had happened to her. Finally, I saw Gazzy and Angel come out of the door down the hallway and be forced back into this awful room.

Shifting in my crate, I saw Iggy huddled in the corner of his crate. He was almost cowering, and I immediately knew he was blind. Forever.

"Hey, Ig," I heard Max call hesitantly from across the room.

"Leave me alone," Iggy muttered angrily, and I wondered what he was thinking about. Probably chopping off all of the boy scientists "special bits" with spoons (yes, spoons) and have them watch while he fed them to goats.

That would be a good punishment.

I just made myself shudder with my own fantasy *shudders*.

Yeah, that would be pretty bad. And the spoons would hurt worse than knives because instead of a quick slice it would be a long, painful tear. No wonder tear (as in rip) is spelled the same as tear (as in cry).

I am done on this topic.

Iggy shifted uncomfortably in his crate, obviously not wanting to draw attention to himself.

"It's okay Iggy," Angel said in a sympathetic voice.

"I don't want to talk about it," Iggy said, and punched the metal bars of his crate. He actually bent them a little, but still shook his hand in pain.

I grimaced and threw my hand forward too, knowing the pain that would come. It worked! I felt the bars bend slightly under my fist. I pulled back my hand and felt the pain hit like a load of bricks, scowling. _Pain is just a message, you can always ignore it._

I cocked back my fist and punched again. I got a rhythm to it; punch, hold hand in pain for about ten seconds in pain, repeat. I was sure only a few more punches and the crate would come off its hinges.

But, you know what; the erasers always walk in at the worst times. They always pick the worst times to walk in. The light flooded in again and my punch came up and hit the part where the plastic meets the metal. It would have only hurt like normal, but the angle of the punch made it ten times worse.

I heard a crack and felt my hand go limp. I knew this pain from a fight back in freshman year. I broke a knuckle. The erasers were doing their rounds now, and I bit back the pain so I wouldn't appear weak in front of them.

They stopped in front of my crate, noticing the big dent in the bars. One tapped another and they hauled me out of the crate. Probably for 'punishment' or whatever. Max shot me a worried glance as I was carried out and I rolled my eyes at her.

I was brought into a (surprise surprise) white room, but I didn't recognize this one. There were no distinguishing characteristics in it, just white walls and white tile. The erasers threw me on the ground and walked over to the door, standing in front of it like body guards.

A guy walked in the door wearing an all-too-familiar white lab coat, but this guy was different. Seeing him gave me a strong sense of déjà vu. He had salt and pepper hair and an athletic body, unlike the rest of the beer-belly scientists here.

"Hello Fang," the scientist said, "I am Dr. Batchelder. We need you for a very special experiment here." I hated the way he was talking to me, like I was a toddler. "Iggy's experiment did not go as planned, as you know, so we need to test it on someone else. We were thinking either you… or Max…" he said 'Max' like he was taking her into consideration.

I couldn't let the same thing happen to Max like Iggy. Even if we hadn't barged in, something still could have gone wrong with the experiment. I gritted my teeth. "I'll do it," I said, steely voiced.

Jeb evilly smiled. "I thought you would."

The erasers picked me up again and I took in everything I saw, knowing it might be my last time seeing. They set me down on the table, latching my arms and legs to the table. It reminded me of the flocks first week here. Those were the days.

They gave me valium and I felt myself slowly drifting into blackness. The last thing I saw before falling into the dark was a glittering knife. I tried to be worried, but just ended up laughing it off and collapsing into the black.


	7. Chapter 7

**I HATE HIGHSCHOOL! I'm taking a medical class my freshman year, and that sucks. People are constantly getting in trouble for alcohol possession (vodka soda mostly, sounds gross to me…) and we used to have hour lunch but they made it 20 minutes because there were four fights in our cafeteria yesterday (every grade eats together) and by making shifts, that stops a lot of fighting. ONE EVEN HAD FREAKING KNIVES! AND THERE ARE TWO PREGNANT GIRLS IN MY SPANISH CLASS! Just thought I'd point that out. And family issues.**

**Disclaimer- JP's life doesn't suck…**

Max POV

I glanced around the shadowy room, getting worried about Fang. He had been gone for over an hour and so much could happen here in that short amount of time. The whole flock was catching up on some well-needed sleep, but my eyes seemed like they were permanently opened it seemed. It was almost as if I needed to make sure everyone else was safe before I was. I was reminded of my days back on the cheerleading team, when I would be the motivator, the leader, the person who always took one for the team. I felt a longing for my old life in that one moment.

But no, even if I could choose to go back to that life, I wouldn't. I couldn't abandon the flock like that, especially Gazzy and Angel. I felt a slight smile come to my face as I heard their peaceful snores, the one time they could relax.

Forcing my eyes closed, I rested my head on the hard plastic of the crate. Suddenly, the door opened and light came in again. I opened my eyes just to blink erotically, seeing spots. The outline of a tall person being carried by two erasers made my heart swell, they wouldn't have brought Fang back if he was dead. The spots cleared out of my eyes and I took a better look at Fang.

He was hanging limply between the two erasers, but his body looked intact, and I was pretty sure they had drugged him and done an operation, there was no other explanation.

He was thrown into a different crate (seeing as he had practically made scraps of the old one) and I heard him slightly groan when his head hit the back metal, and I breathed a sigh of relief. He was definitely alive.

I rested my head and floated off into dreamland, at peace for these next few minutes.

Iggy POV

I grimaced as I woke up to the sounds of erasers kicking our crates again. The light didn't bother me anymore, that was the plus of being blind. The minus? Just about everything else.

I heard Fang moan in the crate next to mine and muffle a yell. "What's up, man?" I asked, trying to look at him, but for all I knew, I was looking at a dead rat.

"Man, how do you deal with this?" Fang ground out through what sounded like clenched teeth.

"What are you talking about?" I asked, confused.

"Yeah?" Max asked, cutting in.

"When they took me, I got the operation Iggy did. Iggy, you would have gone blind either way, you didn't have a chance."

I frowned. "Why the hell did you get the operation?"

"It's not like I had a choice! They sedated me!"

"Lucky," I muttered.

_I haven't actually had to deal with it yet._

Fang POV

I couldn't believe I had gone blind! It was probably my karma for not being able to protect the flock. I deserved it. I kept repeating that in my head, 'you deserve this, you deserve this' as I ran at at least 15 mph on a treadmill.

I could hear Max panting lightly next to me, she was on weights. Life was difficult here (like you couldn't already tell) and being blind made it so much worse. It was not only mine, but also Iggy's first day being blind, and I wondered how he and Nudge were faring in the fight room (we got a free pass on the experiment room because they had operated on my eyes). Angel and Gazzy were in the experiment room and I felt pretty guilty for condemning them there today, but there was nothing I could do.

This blind thing reminded me of when I watched a movie about the Mongols, and to torture their enemy they would sometimes pour boiling silver in their ears and eyes to make them go blind and deaf. But I wasn't deaf, and didn't go blind by boiling silver (thankfully).

I fought to keep up with the treadmill, which I could feel steadily speeding up. I ran, not even knowing what machine I was on, or where in the room, or even which exercise room. Being blind completely sucked.

Suddenly, a bright white light appeared in front of me, and I was blinded (more blinded then before). I wondered if I was dead, and thought that would be a blessing compared to being blind in this place.

But, no, it was a different kind of blessing.

The blessing of sight.

Everything slowly came into focus, and I felt myself snap to attention because the treadmill had stopped.

"Fang?" Max asked, confused, "why are your eyes focused?"

I turned to face her full-on instead of out of the corner of my vision (which was surprisingly good). When I saw her worried face I chuckled a little and shouted giddily, "I can see!" **(I know that's OOC but seriously people? If you just got back your sight when you thought it was gone forever you'd be happy too.)**

She had a look of utter disbelief. "You can what?"

"I can seeeeee!" I leaned down and kissed her out of joy, right on the mouth, but she pulled back and punched me.

"YOU PERVERT! I HAVE… I have a… never mind."

Max POV

"YOU PERVERT! I HAVE… I, I have a… never mind," I said, my voice fading with every word. No, I don't have a boyfriend. Dylan won't want you anymore since you have WINGS!

That your dad gave you.

Your dad gave you wings.

He is not your dad.

I smacked my forehead a few times to clear out all of my inner demons.

_I have to move on and stop dwelling on the past, what has been done is done. It doesn't mean to forgive and forget, it means to not let your past affect how well you fare now._

_Gazzy and Angel need you._

_Nudge and Iggy need you._

I look into Fangs eyes and see black emptiness. _Fang might even need you._

**Okay, so three were cat fights and one was a fist fight (between Tarzan and Retro, yep my school has stupid nicknames too, not just the flock. In geometry, I sit next a dude, his name is Kyree, but people call him Tabias) and Tarzan won. It was an interesting fight, but not worth my lunch time for at least the next month! **


	8. Chapter 8

**I really feel like I need to update.**

**Disclaimer- I just finished the Hunger Games series and HATED the ending! I was really hoping for a Katniss/Gale ending (for anyone who's read the series, doesn't Katniss seem like Max, Gale seem like Fang, and Dylan seem like Peeta?) but it ended with Katniss/Peeta!**

**me no own**

Max POV

I had obligated myself as leader of the Flock inside my head, and decided I would risk everything for them since that epiphany I had (don't remember? It's the last few sentences in chapter seven). It had been seven days since then and we were told we had a special job to do today. I shrugged, happy because Fang and I didn't have to fight erasers today.

We all got out of our crates after the erasers unlocked them, and started stretching our muscles and cracking our backs.

I heard a helpless yelp from behind me, and turned quickly to see Nudge lying face down on the ground. An eraser picked her up by the back of her shirt and we all saw blood dripping from her mouth. "That's what happens when you don't hurry up," he said impatiently, and tossed Nudge to another eraser. "Get her to the medical wing." The other eraser nodded and rushed out.

I was just about to punch the eraser in the face that hurt Nudge, but someone currently had one of my hands in a cuff and was slipping the other hand into the other. I tried to spin and hook punch the whitecoat in the mouth, but the cuffs clicked together behind my back right before.

All of us (minus Nudge) were marched down a hallway we hadn't seen before, and I had gotten to wondering how big this place really was, but before we knew it, our handcuffs were unlatched and we were thrown into a room that smelt like decay. The door shut and we heard it lock, and then I turned around.

This room was a scrubbed clean white one, with people strapped to beds, just like the room the Flock was previously in. But there was one small detail that was different from our circumstance: these bird kids were dead.

Their faces were blistered and their wings were spread out beneath them at odd angles, pressed against the metal beds. Gazzy went up to one and poked it, causing some of the skin to fall off. He quickly pulled back his hand and I saw him swallow a shriek. I barely hid mine myself.

A monotone voice came over the intercom. "You are on cleanup duty. These are failed human-avian experiments. Let this be a reminder to you on what happens when you don't behave."

My mind began to race: what did they do to these kids? Did they gas the room? That seemed like the only answer, but you can never be quite sure.

"Um, weird voice on the intercom, how do we clean up the bodies?" Iggy called to the sky.

As a response, some trash bags and a key came out of the wall, along with a trash chute. I picked up the key awkwardly, and juggled it between my hands for a few seconds, before scowling. "Do they really expect us to clean up their murder victims?" I asked sarcastically, but only to cover up my real confusion.

Fang shrugged, Iggy looked lost in his own world, Gazzy was still shaking with wide eyes from his encounter with the peeling skin, and Angel looked at me. "I guess they do Max, should we do what they say?"

I fake-laughed and walked to the door, testing the key in it. No beans. "No way are we doing what they say." I sat on the floor and crossed my arms. "Undergoing experiments, beating up erasers, and running treadmills is one thing, but really? Throwing away dead people? Don't they think that's a little sick?"

The voice came from the intercom again. "No, we don't, now clean up this mess."

I stood up and started screaming. "These were kids! You killed them! They had futures!" I looked around the room again. The oldest bird kid couldn't have been more than ten. I was about to start telling off the whitecoat on the intercom again, but all of a sudden my head felt like it was about to split open.

I dropped to the floor and held my skull together, keeping my brain from exploding all over everyone. I rocked back and forth, whimpering, for what seemed like hours, but it only could have been a few minutes.

As soon as it started, it stopped, and left a raging headache, but I ignored it, testing my legs to see if I could stand. One shaky step after the other, I walked towards the flock, who were all looking surprised. Well, except Fang of course.

Eventually they registered everything that had happened and rushed over to help me. And thank God for it, because I was about to collapse in pain.

As soon as they had me fully supported, the intercom whitecoat came on… again… "any more questions?" It asked snarkily (actually, no, he was monotone, but if he wasn't, he would have sounded happy with himself.)

Muttering to myself, I tested the key in one of the locks that held the decomposing bodies to the beds. It opened with a click, and I saw the irritated, peeling skin of the kid. I swear, I almost puked from the stench. Slowly working my way through the tables, I unlocked all of the restraints.

The Flock asked me what to do with their eyes, and I shrugged. Awkwardly, I picked up a trash bag and tried to lift a dead body into it, but got grossed out and dropped the arm, shouting, "ew, ew, EW!" I sounded like my old girly self there for a second, but shook it off and put the body in the bag, dropping it down the chute.

Everyone was staring at me, and I looked back at them expectantly. "Well? Aren't you gonna come work? Or what?"

Fang grabbed a bag, put another body in, and threw it down the chute, all in under a minute. He was definitely doing it the 'rip off the bandage' way.

He grabbed another bag and did it again, his face hardening into an emotionless mask.

Iggy started next, copying Fang's method, and I picked up another bag too. I noticed that Gazzy and Angel were just sitting there, and decided to leave them be. They were just little kids, and shouldn't have to be doing this.

About five minutes later we were done, and around twenty bird kid bodies were down wherever that chute led to. I sat next to Gazzy and Angel and wrapped my arms around them, realizing for the first time that they were shaking. "It's okay," I whispered.

Fang POV

After we had finished cleaning up the dead bodies, Max went over and hugged the younger ones, telling them it was okay. She was constantly surprising me, and it was weird. All of those years in fight club had practically given me a sixth sense. I could tell whether a person would play dirty or not, was planning on hurting you or just playing the game, would be aggressive or defensive, what their next move was going to be, and their weak spots; but Max was constantly changing.

Before I could tell she was scared but trying to be tough, not really for the others but for herself, and she wasn't going to trust anyone; but now it seemed that she was trying to protect us, especially the younger set, and is constantly planning something.

She was really confusing, and, I hate to admit it, but she scared me. Not just because she had surpassed the whole flock in physical training, not because I couldn't read her like a book anymore – even though that was pretty scary –; no, none of that, it was because it seemed that she had my gift too, and could not only read other people, but also me most of the time, and that was something I was not used to. All of those years in the ring had not prepared me for dealing with this girl.

I had to get closer to her, find out everything about her. One problem: I couldn't read her, which meant I couldn't trust her. If I did get closer to her, become her greatest ally, I would know everything about her, not just because she would open up to me, but because she would tell me. I would know her greatest fears, biggest problems.

_Hi Max, meet your new best friend._


	9. update:::please read

**Hey guys… so it's been a while with this story, I reread it, and realized how much it sucked. So I'm going to edit and write this story again :). Not sure of the name yet, and the plot will be a little different, but I will alert you when it is up.**


End file.
